Repair Time
I'm not sure why it works out this way, but it always seems that autumn is the time for home repairs and upgrades, for us at least. I'm pretty sure our focus will be on the kitchen, bathroom inside and the skirting around the foundation on the outside. The bathroom floor has been messed up since we moved in over a year ago thanks to a rogue water heater, which not only caused water damage to the flooring, but it also knocked part of a wall loose! The flooring used in the place was MDF, which can't handle getting wet and should never have been used as flooring, but that was standard operating procedure when this place was constructed. The joists are fine, but the floor gives too much under weight and the vinyl covering was installed incorrectly to boot. Rather than mess with all that, I'm apply the same solution I did when I installed our new washing machine--just put new plywood on top of the old floor and when it's all done, put a nice floor covering over it all.
We're also considering walling up an unnecessary door in the bathroom and removing an ill-conceived double sink configuration which wraps around an outside closet. We'll remove the closet and double vanity and replace with a single sink setup, which will free up a ton of space.
In the kitchen, we're thinking of ripping out come horribly constructed cabinetry and redoing it properly, but that may have to wait as there is some more pressing electrical work that needs addressing. The over-sink lighting turns out to be a single florescent bulb fixture hooked up to a dual lamp ballast. Some of the wiring connections don't even have wire nuts!!! So, that's the first thing to address. I'm thinking of putting in a single LED flood recessed light to bathe the sink area in some really nice light.
The skirting outside is just a mess that I didn't get to address fully in the spring time. I'd done the back part, there are pictures on this site of that mini project, but there has never been skirting around the front third of the place, which is where the grade rises up to almost meet the underside of the home. It's been neglected for years, and the outside cats have ripped the underbelly plastic/tarp and now crawl around on top of the central air duct work during the cold nights...I'm pretty sure that's why we had to deal with dead mouse smell for several weeks last summer!
I don't think there is enough room for me to get under all of it to repair all the plastic, and replace and missing insulation, which I'm positive is missing judging by how cold the floor can be at that end during the winter, but I'm going to have to make some effort on it as the heater is already inefficient and cost us so much to heat this place last winter, and we have even less cash to use for that this winter! To help keep the animals out, I'm going to have to either cut some existing vinyl skirting to match the grade or do the same thing with plywood, which I think would be easier in the end, but might look really horrible even if painted to match. I'm up in the air about it, but I'm running out of warm days to do the work.
